


Can't Win for Losing

by Silex



Category: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Ending, Developing Relationship, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Other, Trick or Treat: Trick, Video Game Logic, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 00:38:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16378103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: Beating the game doesn't work as planned and Bethany, Alex and the others remain trapped in the game. Alex, having been trapped for so long, is resigned to his fate, but Bethany isn't about to give up. Of course it's not just the game world itself that's making things complicated.





	Can't Win for Losing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kissoffools](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissoffools/gifts).



“I think the game got, like, confused,” Bethany said, staring at the flame of the candle sitting on the table between them.

Alex shrugged. He’d had more time to get used to things than her, to resign himself to the reality of being stuck in the game. Then again maybe it was because he’d had less to adjust to. Ending up some idealized game avatar had   to have been easier than what Bethany must have been going through stuck as Professor Shelly Oberon. After all, Spencer and Martha hadn’t seemed that upset by the turn of events.

“Seriously, I think it’s figuring things out now,” Bethany continued, undeterred by his silence, “Maybe it’s making things up as it goes, but maybe we can help it, or at least work with it.”

Alex looked at her, him, Bethany. It was as confusing as anything in the game sometimes, having to reconcile the face and appearance of Professor Oberon with the mannerisms of the girl that he‘d come to realize Bethany was.

The kind of girl he never would have stood a chance with outside of the game.

He hadn’t exactly fallen into any particular crowd back at school, skirting the edges of the circles of ‘the rebellious kids’ and ‘the cool kids’ because at the fringes both those circles overlapped and you could fit in without actually fitting in. He hadn’t really been either so his social life had sucked. He had friends and all, the kind you hung out with, not partied with. And if you didn’t go to parties you didn’t get girls like Bethany.

Girls like Bethany had been outside of the game.

Right now Bethany was stuck as the overweight, awkward Professor Oberon and other than how she acted there was no indication of who she really was.

Which was an awful way to think of things, he knew, but it was a useful distraction, just like her obsession with figuring an alternate way out of the game.

He’d expected that after enough time she’d get sullen, pouty, maybe even storm off to find her friends, but she hadn’t. Which wasn’t to say that she hadn’t sought out Spencer and Martha.

She’d gone alone and when she got back she’d been alone, and told him huffily that they were happy as Ruby Roundhouse and Dr. Smolder Bravestone.

And that was all she’d said, which had made him wonder if she was jealous of Martha.

Except she didn’t act it. She stayed focused on figuring a way out of the game for the rest of them, even if she didn’t talk about bringing her friends into the plan anymore.

He’d bumped into them in the café area of the market section of the game and they did seem happy. They’d waved him over to share coffee and talk.

Watching them as the musclebound Dr. Bravestone and drop-dead-gorgeous Ruby Roundhouse had been disconcerting, like it had been with Bethany at first. Martha, even though she looked like could win a fight against a dozen armed men and walk out of it without a single hair out of place, still blushed and stumbled over conversation, looking away when she spoke and not intending to be as rude as she was. Watching Spencer put so much sugar into his coffee that Alex’s teeth hurt in sympathy had been hilarious, the big tough looking guy bothered by the fact that the drink was bitter and the milk tasted funny.

The thing that got to him was that they were happy with who they were, if not where they were.

Or at least they’d convinced themselves that they were happy with who they appeared to be. If Bethany had ended up with either of their avatars in place of how she’d ended up he was sure that she wouldn’t have been so painfully awkward to talk to as either of them. Half smiles and unable to make eye contact, as though embarrassed by the fact that they were taking advantage of the bodies the game had given them. He’d have done the same thing in either of their positions, he was sure of it, but he would have at least had the guts to admit it.

Then again he was kind of glad that they’d ended up with the avatars they had. Thinking of Bethany as Dr. Bravestone shouldn’t have been any more awkward than seeing her as Shelly Oberon, but somehow it was.

Spencer at least had the decency to ask how Bethany was taking things while Martha wondered how Anthony was doing, if he was alright.

Alex had excused himself after that.

Because even if he wasn’t jealous of either of them, he was jealous of Anthony.

The little jerk had walked right up to Nigel and shook his hand. There had been a flash and a whooshing sound and he’d been gone. Nigel had stared at them for a few seconds too long, gave them one last ‘congratulations’, hopped into his jeep and drove off, leaving them all staring and wondering.

Spencer had figured it out first, that there could only be one winner in the game and that it had been Anthony because he acted first.

Between then and now Alex had run into Nigel several times and each time the NPC had seemed confused, if such a thing was possible, offering him rewards ‘to assist him on further adventures’, because it was still a game.

Thanks to Nigel’s bonus items both Alex and Bethany were back up to three lives, so it was hard to be mad at the NPC. Besides, he’d given them some actually decent stuff, basic items that made life in the treehouse slightly more bearable than it had been.

Until Bethany blushed and looked away Alex hadn’t realized that the two of them had been staring at each other.

“I went out and found Nigel the other day, he shows up on the map now,” Bethany spoke as though reading his mind, “There’s like a pattern to where and when, the stuff he has to give too.”

Alex nodded, he’d noticed the same thing. Early in the day it was ‘points’, the currency of the game that he could use to buy things in the market area, later it was useful items that weren’t always useful, at least not immediately so, at night it was lives if they were down one and more points if they were full.

Bethany frowned, “He had more to say than usual.”

“I’ve noticed.”

There were lines that Nigel always repeated when giving him an item, but his starting and ending comments had become more varied and sometimes he’d say other things randomly. Nothing important, just useful tips about the world of the game. Okay maybe, some of them had actually been useful, like the fact that there were actual citronella plants that grew in the game world and where to find them. He and Bethany had gone out to find that particular location when it was added to her map and had brought back several of the plants, which were now growing in pots purchased from the market area.

Bethany closed her eyes, “Yesterday he wasn’t just giving stuff away. He had stuff to sell too, upgrades he called them and he said I had enough points for some.”

That was new and interesting. Upgrades hadn’t been part of the game before and if that had changed…

“I got one,” she bent down and pulled something out of her pack.

Moving the candles aside she laid it out on the table.

It was a blank dirty piece of paper, edges torn, spotted with dark stains.

He didn’t even have to ask to know what it was, but Bethany explained anyway, not because she was rude without meaning to the way Martha was, but because Alex had come to understand that she needed validation.

“It’s a map.”

“A map,” he nodded, looking at it, though it was blank to him.

She, he, Bethany, smiled at him and Alex closed his eyes.

Knowing the girl Bethany was didn’t make things easier. If anything it made them worse. Because she liked him and he liked her too, the person she was, not the person she looked like or the person she must have thought she was. He wasn’t sure if Professor Oberon was getting in the way of that person or helping Bethany relax and be herself. All he knew was that it was complicated, more so than he liked.

“Right here,” she pointed to a spot near a crease in the seemingly blank map, “Is the ‘Expedition Outpost’. When I got the map from him Nigel said that it was good place to go if we want to start a new adventure.”

“Did he really say that?” Alex laughed.

Bethany rolled her eyes, “No, but do you really want me to repeat the whole rhyme? I suck at poetry, but I’ll do it if you want me to.”

Sighing, Alex looked at, what to him, was the blank map, “Joking aside, is there anything else on it?”

“A bazar, some ruins and a whole lot of stuff that we’re going to need to find out for ourselves,” she looked up from the map to smile, “Do you think they’ll have more shops at the bazar than there are at the market because…”

It was hard for him not to laugh at that. Since he’d first met her Bethany had been unhappy with her avatar in the game and she’d tried, in her own way, to change things.

Even if she’d given up on sit-ups and pushups every morning, because no matter how she tired she was never able to increase the number or lose the paunch she had as Professor Oberon, she was still obsessed with her appearance. After he made a joke about how she’d never look like Spencer, Dr. Smolder, Muscle-head, Bravestone himself, she stopped. It was funny, because she didn’t come across as some clueless ditz, or vain snob.

Then again, maybe it was because, despite everything, he liked her. Who knew shallow she might have been outside of the game, back with her friends.

Back in her real body.

At the moment her obsession with shopping was an attempt at begging the question.

“What do you think’ll happen when we get through with the adventure?”

She looked up for just a split second, then went back to staring at the map with renewed intensity, “I know they’re not going to have anything that’ll make me look good or anything. But I was thinking a new outfit would be nice. Retail therapy, you know?”

“I’m sure you look good,” he blurted out, “The real you looks good. Really good.”

“Thanks,” she smiled, “I actually kind of needed that.”

“Any time,” Alex smiled.

They were both off the hook for the moment, but it couldn’t last.

“I was going to see if Spencer and Martha wanted to go, to the bazar at least because…” she trailed off and looked at her hands, “Because they’re happy, aren’t they?”

“I think they are,” Alex agreed, joining her in dancing around the real issue, “But it’ll be easier as a group for sure so we should at least try. And who knows?”

Bethany nodded, “That’s the thing, isn’t it? But maybe that’s a good thing.”

“What?”

“Well,” she bit her lip, “If they don’t want to leave the game and like before only one of us can after this, then that’s good for you, right?”

“What do you mean?”

He wasn’t following her, or maybe he was and he didn’t want to.

“Well, since you’ve been here the longest it’s only fair,” she reached up to brush her hair back, only to stop and laugh at the pointless, reflexive gesture. Muscle memory from the girl she was.

The girl she really was.

She held her hand in the air, looking at it.

“No,” he took her hand in his, “I’m not leaving you here on your own.”

“I won’t be on my own,” she tossed her head like it didn’t matter, but he could tell by the look in her eyes that it did, “I’ve got Martha and Spencer and next time around I can be the one who gets out.”

His grip on her hand tightened, “No, you should go first. I’ve been here longer so I know this place better. Besides, what if something goes wrong? What kind of jerk would I be abandoning a girl in a place like this?”

“Thanks,” she smiled, but she wasn’t agreeing with him, “We probably should try and figure out if this is going to get us all out of the game or just one of us because that’ll change how things go. Martha and Spencer are so caught up in trying to be the people they look like and you’re just you and I feel so weird sometimes.”

“It is pretty weird,” he agreed, then tried to backtrack as he realized what he’d said, “But it could be weirder. You could have been the one who ended up Smolder Bravestone.”

She raised an eyebrow, “How would that be weirder?”

“Well,” now that she’d asked Alex wasn’t sure how to put it into words, how the way she was now he could still believe that she was really a pretty girl outside of the game, which made how he felt about her okay. Except all he had to go on was what she’d said and her mannerisms. And that he wanted to believe her because of how much he’d come to like her, “It just would be, okay? I mean maybe you’d be happier that way, but I wouldn’t. Wanting to ask someone who looked like that out on a date is too much.”

“You want to ask me out?” She smiled at him and despite the fact that he was looking at the pudgy, bearded face of Professor Oberon he felt his pulse quicken.

“It’s stupid, I know,” he laughed, like it was some kind of joke, “But I’d like to meet the real you.”

“Once we get out of the game,” she said carefully.

“If we get out of the game.”

She nodded and silence returned.

In the end it all came down to that one ‘if’, because if she was right and the game was changing then there was no telling what might lay ahead. Even then, if they managed to make it through whatever was waiting for them, there was another problem. Bethany was so sure that they’d need to leave one at a time, but what if that wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Nigel had looked confused when only Anthony was the only one who made it out at the end, Nigel the NPC, a representation of the game’s intent. What if this time the game wanted to send them all home at once?

That was what he was worried about.

Because when he’d spoken to them Martha and Spencer had made it clear that they were happy with the way things were and didn’t want to leave.

If he and Bethany wanted to make it out her two friends might not be friends, but another set of obstacles to overcome.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for asking for this pairing. I hope you don't mind that I went in a kind of dark direction, but you'd tagged that you were open to 'tricks' as well as 'treats'.


End file.
